Seems to me that in "the olden days", an important design feature that's absent in a lot of modern swords is a design that's not likely to break at the tang or handle, something I see missing in a lot of cheap swords today.

Yes. Absolutely. There were no "rat tail" tangs. That is purely a feature of modern "wall hangers."

Though I will stipulate that bronze age weapons had some rather unique attachment methods which would have made the weapon fairly unsuitable to cutting and almost specific to thrusting and thrusting ALONE. Have you seen what's commonly called the "bronze age rapier"?
(images from: http://www.templeresearch.eclipse.co...nze/rapier.htm

But still, by the time of the Romans and going on, you're right, full tangs were the norm.

In the book "Boarders Away, With Steel:Edged Weapons And The Classical Age Of Sail 1626-1826" by William Gilkerson (I highly recomend it and you can by it on Amazon) that cutlass drills on warships were based around single-stick ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlestick )